Europe Stocks Decline After Stoxx 600 Hits Five-Year High

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks retreated after six
consecutive days of gains that sent the Stoxx Europe 600 Index
to its highest level in more than five years.

Swatch Group AG, the world’s largest watchmaker, lost 0.8
percent after a fire caused damage at one of its workshops.
International Personal Finance Plc rallied 10 percent after
Numis Securities Ltd. recommended buying the stock following a
26 percent drop in the past two days. Vedanta Resources Plc
increased 4 percent after its Sesa Sterlite Ltd. won approval to
restart its iron-ore mines in Karnataka, India.

The Stoxx 600 slipped 0.2 percent to 327.13 at the close of
trading in London. The equity gauge has gained 0.6 percent this
month and is heading for its biggest annual rally since 2009.

“Profits are being taken today after a phenomenal year for
investors who believed in the European economic recovery and the
policy backstops that were constantly put in place,” Daniel
Weston, a portfolio manager at Aimed Capital GmbH in Munich,
wrote in an e-mail.

The Stoxx 600 gained 5.3 percent in the six days through
Dec. 27, the most since July 2012. The gauge completed a second
weekly gain following better-than-forecast U.S. economic data
and after the International Monetary Fund said it will raise its
growth outlook for the nation. The index has advanced 17 percent
this year. It reached 327.68 at the end of last week, the
highest since May 2008.

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes rose less
than forecast in November. A gauge of pending home sales climbed
0.2 percent, the first gain in six month, after a 1.2 percent
drop in October that was larger than initially reported, the
National Association of Realtors said. The median projection in
a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1 percent advance.

Swatch dropped 0.8 percent to 589.5 Swiss francs. A fire
yesterday caused damage to a workshop of its ETA unit at
Grenchen, in the canton of Solothurn. While nobody was harmed,
the workshop was entirely destroyed, the company said yesterday,
adding that it was too early to put a figure on the damage.

IPF Rallies

IPF jumped 10 percent to 501 pence. Numis, which placed IPF
shares under review last week, upgraded them to buy, saying that
risk is priced in after last week’s slump. The lender of small,
unsecured cash loans said on Dec. 24 that the Polish Office of
Consumer Protection and Competition fined its local unit 2.4
million pounds ($3.9 million) for infringing consumers’
interests.

Vedanta climbed 4 percent to 937.5 pence. Its subsidiary
Sesa Sterlite, India’s biggest producer of aluminum, zinc and
copper, received permission from a committee appointed by the
nation’s top court to resume mining at its Karnataka mine.

Outotec Oyj rose 2.8 percent to 7.61 euros. The Finnish
maker of mining machinery and supplier of smelters won an order
from OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s biggest mining company.

Technip SA added 2.6 percent to 69.34 euros. Bank of
America Corp. Merrill Lynch said in a report that Russia will
grow further for European oil services in 2014 amid higher
investments into exploration and offshore activities. The
brokerage cited Europe’s largest oilfield-services provider by
market value as a key name.

Petrofac Ltd. and Subsea 7 SA, which were also mentioned,
climbed 1.5 percent to 1,220 pence and 1.7 percent to 116.1
kroner, respectively.